


Orestes in red

by thepeopletoomustrise



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-28
Updated: 2013-06-28
Packaged: 2017-12-16 10:33:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/861059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepeopletoomustrise/pseuds/thepeopletoomustrise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's Enjolras; he's been shot."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Orestes in red

**Author's Note:**

> A different interpretation on a prompt for "A Little Fall Of Rain like scene, only with Grantaire and Enjolras." 
> 
> Obviously an e/R focus (if Enjolras was dying, there is no doubt Combeferre and him would be having some major goodbyes, so just bare with me. I needed my e/R fix.)

_“Grantaire! Dammit, Grantaire, wake up already!”_

_A hand clamps down on Grantaire’s shoulder and blunt nails dig into the fabric of his shirt; frantic shaking begins, and the drunkard blinks, reluctant to let the light bleed into cracked eyelids. He hears a voice, desperate and pleading, and it cuts through his stupor in sharp slices, “Grantaire, in God’s name, wake up!”_

_He blinks and moans, scrabbling at his cheeks with his hands, “Don’t tell me we’ve surrendered already,” sarcasm is laced in his voice due to his raging headache and vexation at being woken up._

_The hand grabs him again, and he recognizes the voice as Courfeyrac’s, “Be quiet, you bastard!” the cuss comes affectionately, but his voice is no less panicked, “Grantaire, come with me. Up with you, hurry!”_

_Grantaire shakes his head and rolls over, groaning. But the next words that he hears shatter his drunken stupor as a knife would shatter a mirror._

_“Enjolras has been shot.”_

 

They have moved him to the sole table in the Musain, spread out like the flag he’d spent his life waving; many of the men are standing back mournfully against the wall, but Combeferre and Joly remain huddled over the figure on the table with panicked hands flying over his body, from point A to point B.

 

Grantaire sees a stream of blood dribbling slowly from the edge of the table and he feels he’s going to be sick. Courfeyrac pulls him close, though, and before he knows it he’s staring over Enjolras, swaying unsteadily on his feet. When he latches a hand onto the edge of the table in an effort to steady himself, his palm comes back slick with blood – blood that seems to be originating from his abdomen, blooming as if he were a rose. The wound hisses when he takes a breath, and now Grantaire notices that his marble skin is about ten shades paler than it had been a few hours prior.

 

“Enjolras, Enjolras, it’s me,” he babbles aimlessly, and Combeferre steps back to give him room, “It’s Grantaire.”

 

A cough sputters from Enjolras’ pale lips, but he moves his head, shifts it to the direction of where Grantaire is standing over him. His eyes seem to refocus and he murmurs, “Ah.”

 

“Oh, God… you’ve been shot,” he says, and his voice shakes in panic.

 

Enjolras’ dark eyelashes flutter and he purses his lips, “It seems that way, y-yes.”

 

Grantaire cannot physically stand to watch his leader’s body shudder with every breath; to watch blood stain the fabric of his clothes; to hear Enjolras’ silver tongued words quiver and break… out of instinct he sticks his hand out to dig the heel of his palm into the wound. It’s a pitiful effort to stop the bleeding, but he doesn’t know what else to do – and _dammit, why is no one doing anything to help?!_ Grantaire’s stomach finds itself falling to his feet like a deadweight when he desperately shouts to no one in particular – but to everyone – “Why is no one fucking _helping_ me _?”_ His hands press into the blood and a sick gargling noise replies.

 

“They know,” Enjolras coughs again, and a thin stream of blood trickles from the corner of his mouth, “that I’m dying.”

 

Grantaire’s voice breaks, “You’re not dying, you dramatic bastard,” and he presses with purpose against Enjolras’ abdomen. The man wheezes and makes the sound of a laugh riddled with pain.

 

“Must you argue with me… even while I lay here to die…?” his words are chopped up with broken breaths.

 

Grantaire does not a reply to that. He feels Enjolras’ own blood slicked hand snake on top of his, and suddenly he can’t breathe. Sadness slams into his chest and overtakes him until his vision is blurred with tears and his breaths come as though he cannot get enough air for the life of him. Enjolras’ eyelids flutter shut for a moment, and Grantaire leans into him, nearly shouting into his ghostly face, “Open your eyes, Enjolras!”

 

He does so in reply and looks up at Grantaire in a sleepy daze, “Mm.”

 

“You don’t get to die. Not yet. Not until your damn new world blooms on the horizon and you get to bask in the glow of a perfect republic,” he stammers. He falters then, and he bows his head in an effort to conceal the emotion that he is suddenly drowning in.

Enjolras whispers, _“_ _Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori,”_ and Grantaire’s heart feels as if its wrung out like wet fabric.

 

“No, no, not yet, Enjolras,” he’s pleading now, but he doesn’t care. His cheeks are wet, too, but he cares not about that either, “You inspire so many, your dedication is the fire of which ignites others – like me. For the love of God, you can’t… you _cannot_ go, I…” and his voice breaks again, a noise interrupting his words like a sob or gasp.  “Too many people will miss your lead.”

 

A sad smile is on Enjolras’ lips, “And so I will die for my country, as is meant to be,” The way he chokes on the words makes Grantaire’s knees buckle, and soon he’s leaning entirely over Enjolras, body quivering. “I am not the only man to inspire. You, too, have the capability.”

 

But Grantaire is hardly hearing him; panic has taken him over completely at the thought of a world without Enjolras, of a world without the light he so avidly follows, of a world without the hope and the spark that only Enjolras inspires him so avidly with. His free hand tangles a fist into Enjolras’ red coat – he can see tears fall from his own eyes, “You don’t understand. You’re a bloody fool. We are t-two sides to a franc, and if you are not here, my value is none,” his voice cuts off raggedly into another awful noise of sorrow.

 

Enjolras coughs up more blood, then, and the crimson runs down his marble cheek in a fiery streak. He shakes his head, “You shall see me again when our battle is won.”

 

Grantaire is crying openly now, “That’s not good enough!” His chest heaves, “You cannot die for Patria when so many depend on you here… such as I, Enjolras, _I_ do…”

 

Enjolras considers this for a moment, “You call me a God…” a groan sputters from his lips, “…when I am nothing but a man.”

 

“But you will never understand,” is what Grantaire replies, words quivering somewhere in the pit of his throat. His face is streaked with tears, swollen, and fat teardrops roll down his cheeks and find their way to Enjolras’ chest. Enjolras doesn’t reply, so Grantaire looks at him through blurred tears and insists, “No one should be deprived of the light you bring to people’s lives,” he chokes, sandwiching his other hand on top of Enjolras’ offered one, “Even hopeless drunkards like me.”

 

Enjolras looks at him in a hazy gaze, blinking slowly as he speaks, “And I could not have existed without my opposite,” His breathing is slowing, “You do have a place, Grantaire, whether you believe me or not.”

 

“I believe _in_ you,”

 

“I know.”

 

Grantaire watches as his expression is growing weaker, as his eyelids are fluttering dangerously close to shut, as his breaths are shortening; he squeezes his hand around Enjolras’, tangling his fingers in a grip as tight and as desperate as he can possibly get it, “Y-You can’t die yet,” he pleads, squeezing his own eyes shut as if to shut out the world, “or you’ll never… you’ll never know…”

 

But Enjolras gives a tired, sad, smile, and his voice is not even above a whisper when he replies.

 

“I’ve always known.”

 

And then Enjolras shuts his eyes for the last time.

 

When Grantaire feels his chest rise and fall for the last time and hears his final breath float off into the air, he’s suffocating. He nearly throws himself onto the table as he reaches to take the body into his arms – he grabs desperately at the man’s clothing, at anything he can get, and buries his face into the breast of his coat. He’s sobbing, now, and empty tears soak the shell of a man who was once Apollo, of a man whose words once rang with revolutionary fervor and ignited sparks that could change the world. In the midst of his tears he presses lips against his forehead, matted equally with sweat and with blood. 

 

“Enjolras!” he pleads, and his words are broken between gasps and sobs when he tries to hear a heartbeat and is met with nothing but echoes. The men in the room are mourning in quiet while Grantaire feels his own heart breaking; feels his own strength melting away. He can’t breathe. He can’t move. He is nothing.

 

In fact, he does not move; not for hours. He does not flinch even as the barricade is overtaken; instead he waits, arms wrapped around Enjolras’ body, whispered hushed nothings into the still air that surrounds them.

 

He still does not move when guards enter the Musain – or when they find Grantaire with arms around a corpse. A muffled _I_ _love you_ is the last thing Grantaire can mumble against the dead man’s skin before shots are fired.

**Author's Note:**

> I was in a major angst bubble tonight and this is the result. If you enjoyed it at all, I'd love to know -- and if you regret wasting five minutes reading it, I apologize.


End file.
